Kristin Lavransdatter read-along | 2025

Well, DS1 listened to me and took the book back to the shop today. So Kindle new version incoming.

Fru Aashild is developing into an interesting character, wise and astute. The scene with Sira Sigurd when the wine and ale goes to his head is pretty tense. It feels like we're learning more about what might be behind Ragnfrid's concerns.

I've just got my edition (new translation) and am slowly catching up. Enjoyed Chapter 1.

I’ve made peace with my non-Tina edition. Though am yet to start.

@cassandre there is a book I read last year which looks at the link between Anglo Saxon Christianity and older belief systems - not as dry as it sounds!

It makes sense I suppose, as a way to spread a new belief system, attach it to the already existing one.

Good points about all the shocking instances of lack of safeguarding!!

Like you @TonTonMacoute I was struck by the mother's guilt and self-hatred.

One aspect of the book I like so far is the way Christian beliefs and folkloric beliefs (also with a supernatural aspect) coexist side by side. You have the priests, but also the dwarf woman and Fru Aashild. This is typical of some of the medieval literature I've read.

Welcome, welcome new readers!

Interesting how Ragnfrid is being portrayed. At the start she is given this incredibly negative persona, gloomy and anti social, who has suffered terrible loss, then rejuvenated by the birth of the new child, and there is clearly some backstory to come out yet about what she did that she seems to believe she is being punished for. Feel very sorry for Kristin who is beginning to realise that her mother feels differently about her.

An interesting range of characters though, I'm enjoying it but having to try quite hard not to break down every event into a Mumsnet thread but it's quite hard (AIBU to think they shouldn't have let DCs play on a building site? Oh, but we were right there watching...)

May I join? I adore KL and will tey to re-read along.

Thank you for the lovely warm welcome ❤️

I really like the way the writer gets us to follow the story from Kristin's perspective. For example, the argument between Ragnfrid and her brother, Trond in ch3. We don't actually witness it but get a sense of the anger from what Kristin learns that morning. Like Kristin, we're trying to understand what went on between the siblings, what might have been said. It's interesting seeing Kristin's view subtly shift as it occurs to her that there was 'something about her mother that was not was not as it should be - that she was different from other women'

Oh sad chapter.

Welcome to the thread @MagpieCastle!

I'm so happy to have found this thread! The book was a gift from ds but it remained on the 'to be read' pile until you spurred me on to get started. Have just finished ch3.
I'll be interested to learn more about Fru Aashild and the impact these events will all have on Kristin and her family.
My SiL was named after the main character as MiL loved the books so much.

Chapter 3; a difficult read. Poor family!
Fru Aashild is an intriguing woman.

Dammit! I wish I'd gone with the Kindle now too after reading this. Still waiting for my paper copy to arrive.

Thank you cassandre - yes my copy (bought secondhand online) must be American, it has US and Canadian prices on the back - I hadn’t realised it would be different, I thought the edging must be what it meant by ‘deluxe’! Do people get the hang of being able to flick back and forward through books like that? Don’t let me put you off a paper copy Agualusa!

I noticed the reference to the wreaths cassandre and filed it away in my brain for future reference :)

I'm not a fan of the cover art on my edition of Vol. 1. So twee! A bit pre-Raphaelite but not as good as the pre-Raphaelites.

It sounds like you have the older translation, Agualusa, instead of Nunnally's modern one. I read that the language of the older translation is deliberately antiquated, to sound more medieval, and (as Janina mentioned) that it leaves out some sex scenes. Personally I prefer translations that sound modern, as I think there's something inauthentic about a translator trying to mimic the language of an earlier era.

CornishLizard, the ragged edges are called 'deckle edge' and are popular in the US for some reason; I wonder if the trilogy edition is an American edition?

As I mentioned before, my three-volume Penguin edition (which I bought a few years ago) is an American one. I have a feeling that the Nunnally translation was issued by Penguin in the US and is therefore harder to get hold of in the UK.

A comment on the actual story (!): I notice that the novel is called The Wreath and that we have two wreaths in chapter 1: the one little Kristin weaves herself, and the golden one that the fairy lady shows to her just afterward, when she is beckoning for Kristin to join her. I'm not yet ready to speculate on the symbolic significance of these wreaths though!

That could be quite a debate - on the one hand Ragnfrid is definitely limiting her husband’s life, but then she is grieving the loss of their three children.